In recent years, there has been a demand for environmentally friendly pneumatic tires to prevent worsening of the global environment. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the rolling resistance of tires and to enhance the fuel efficiency performance. As methods of reducing the rolling resistance, for example, reducing the compounded amount of carbon black in the rubber composition that constitutes the tire and use of a substance having a low glass transition temperature as a polymer have been known. However, although such a rubber composition can achieve the effect of reducing the rolling resistance, grip performance, particularly wet grip performance, which is an important basic characteristic of a tire may decrease, and tire durability, such as cut resistance and chipping resistance, may be deteriorated due to decrease in tensile elongation at break.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-138157A proposes to enhance both the fuel efficiency performance and the grip performance by a rubber composition for use in tires that uses a rubber having a low glass transition temperature as a polymer and that contains an aromatic modified terpene resin.
However, this rubber composition for use in tires has insufficient tire durability such as cut resistance and chipping resistance, and further enhancement of fuel efficiency performance is also demanded, and thus this rubber composition has room for improvement.